January 11, 2008

Given my astrological sign, I thought this pic I took of very young goats and their mom at the San Juan County Fair last August was appropriate for today. Although, many say that the constellation– one of the dimmer ones up there– is actually a sea goat. Having neither underwater camera gear, nor faith that sea goats actually exist, I’m opting for their gill-less equivalents. I’m guessing that I could put all these cuties in the water and they’d do their best for the photo shoot, but they wouldn’t appreciate it very much. The water right now hovers at around 50 degrees. So land goats it is, much to their relief.

I didn’t realize female goats had horns, but hey, I was raised in a farm animal-free environment and am still playing catch-up all these years later. And there’s an increasing number of all these years. Today is the demarcation and declaration that my body has completed yet another full orbit around the sun. But the view this January looks a lot different than last, due to my latitudinal shift.

I suspect there’s been an attitudinal shift, as well. I especially noticed this when I was in New York for the conference last week. Yes, I ran around and did a lot of things. Busy busy busy. Fun fun fun. But it was a somewhat shorter, less frenzied list of things than in years past. At first I feared that maybe I’d lost my edge; maybe my endless energy was finally waning a bit. There were even more activities that I could have jammed into any already full day and evening. But when I mentioned this observation to my very dear friend Alvin as I forewent a concert and calmly packed up my exhibit boxes on Sunday, he smiled at me and said, “Editing. It’s just editing.”

And he was right.

There’s something very wonderful that occurs as ones brain gets a little dizzier with each solar rotation. We learn what’s important and what’s less so at any given moment, and yes, we finally learn to edit.

I look forward to becoming an old goat, and one who is as good an editor as she is a spewer of things that need editing.

Today’s audio clip in my continuing pixelsonic presentation is performed by another good friend, clarinetist Gerry Errante, whose orbiting sea goat also aligned itself on this very same day of the month. The farm was busy nursing musicians that day!

Glenn Buttkus said,

January 11 is the 11th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 354 days remaining until the end of the year (355 in leap years).

Events
1055 – Theodora is crowned Empress of the Byzantine Empire.
1158 – Vladislav II becomes King of Bohemia.
1569 – First recorded lottery in England.
1571 – Austrian nobility is granted freedom of religion.
1693 – Mt. Etna erupts in Sicily, Italy. A powerful earthquake destroys parts of Sicily and Malta.
1759 – In Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first American life insurance company is incorporated.
1779 – Ching-Thang Khomba is crowned King of Manipur.
1787 – William Herschel discovers Titania and Oberon, two moons of Uranus.
1794 – Robert Forsythe, a U.S. Marshal is killed in Augusta, Georgia when trying to serve court papers, the first US Marshal to die while carrying out his duties.
1805 – The Michigan Territory is created.
1861 – Alabama secedes from the United States.
1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Arkansas Post – General John McClernand and Admiral David Dixon Porter capture the Arkansas River for the Union.
1867 – Benito Juárez becomes the Mexican president again.
1879 – The Anglo-Zulu War begins.
1880 – A total solar eclipse blackens the sky of San Francisco one day after the funeral of Emperor Norton.
1902 – Popular Mechanics magazine is published for the first time.
1908 – Grand Canyon National Monument is created.
1912 – The Lawrence textile strike begins in Lawrence, Massachusetts.
1917 – The Kingsland munitions factory explosion occurs as a result of sabotage.
1919 – Romania annexes Transylvania.
1922 – First use of insulin to treat diabetes in a human patient.
1923 – Troops from France and Belgium occupy the Ruhr area to force Germany to make its reparation payments.
1935 – Amelia Earhart is the first woman to fly solo from Hawaii to California.
1942 – Japan declares war on the Netherlands and invades the Netherlands East Indies.
1942 – The Japanese capture Kuala Lumpur.
1943 – The United States and United Kingdom give up territorial rights in China.
1946 – Enver Hoxha declares the People’s Republic of Albania with himself as dictator.
1949 – First recorded case of snowfall in Los Angeles, California.
1957 – The African Convention is founded in Dakar.
1957 – Mass-murderer Jack Gilbert Graham is executed via the Gas Chamber.
1962 – An avalanche on Huascaran in Peru causes 4,000 deaths.
1964 – United States Surgeon General Dr. Luther Leonidas Terry, M.D., publishes a report saying that smoking may be hazardous to health. It is the first such statement ever made by the U.S. government.
1964 – The Whisky a Go Go night club in Los Angeles, the first disco in the United States, is opened.
1970 – The Kansas City Chiefs defeat the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 to win Super Bowl IV. Quarterback Len Dawson is named MVP.
1972 – East Pakistan renames itself Bangladesh.
1973 – The Open University, Britain’s distance-learning university, awards its first degrees.
1974 – The world’s first surviving set of sextuplets are born to Susan Rosenkowitz in Cape Town, South Africa.
1986 – The Gateway Bridge, Brisbane in Queensland, Australia is officially opened.
1990 – 300,000 march in favor of Lithuanian independence.
1994 – The Irish Government announces the end of a 15-year broadcasting ban on the IRA and its political arm Sinn Féin.
1996 – Haiti becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty.
1998 – Sidi-Hamed massacre takes place in Algeria, over 100 people are killed.
2001 – The Federal Trade Commission approves the merger of AOL and Time Warner to form AOL Time Warner.

And of course, it can not be left out that Alex Shapiro Day is a feast of the heart and mind throughout the San Juan Islands and County. Many happy returns there, “young lady”. One nice thing about being an old fart [I am 63+] is so many critters become younger than you every year. I am a Gemini and am overjoyed at being the earthly intellectual.

Sounds like your friend Alvin is also a wise man, and a kind man. Yes, editing, prioritizing, gauging our energies, watching the seasons come and go at cyber speed, piling emotions and experiences away in memory boxes within us that color our Art and our life. Yes, Nanny goats also have horns, as do cows if you do not cut them off. Goats make good pets, if you have the room for them. They follow you like a dog, wagging their tale and talking to you; and they are very smart, and quite affectionate. Maybe Rancho Shapiro needs a goat to keep the weeds down, and protect the premises.

“Fuga Petrum”;
A fugue especially designed for stone hall made of several sub-halls of varying lengths tuned for specific echo delays so that one need only play the first subject on the organ and the various halls will echo in at the proper intervals and create not only the answering counterpoint but even create new subjects.
Grants are being sought as we speak.

Glenn Buttkus said,

Folks need to check out Palmer’s blog, FEEL FREE TO LAUGH, where he describes in detail his three imaginary creative compositions, and then check out my comment regarding the opening of the PALMER PALACE OF THE ARTS on the hill overlooking Madrona. This is pure theatre of the mind, and a rib tickler, and an ode to everything. I even included Alex as an audience member; which I’m sure she would be. Palmer got money (in his mind) from Bill Gates to spite Paul Allen, and then he contacted Norman Langill (an old college theatre and acting buddy of mine) to include his performers from Teatro Zinzani, and then he contacted Arne Zaslove, our old director and teacher from the 70’s who is still working and teaching in Seattle, to do some directing and designing of sets. This event would set the cultural soothsayers and critical cretins on their ears. Good stuff, the theatre of the mind. A lot of good musical compositions come from there as I understand it.

Barry said,

Happy Mucho Belated BD!
That you were born – wonderful!
That you travel this terrestrial ball – marvelous!
That you share yourself, your musings, melodies, rhapsodies and rapier wit – absolutely awesome!
You Rock!